 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-29 02:06
Suggested tools of the trade for adjusting your clarinet reeds.
1- A reed clipper, or trimmer. This is a must to make a reed harder. I learned to taper the reed first before clipping to alleviate the harshness so often associated with clipping.
2- A reed knife, reed rush or sand paper to make a reed softer and or balance the tip and sides. This is a must to learn if you are ever going to make your reeds play better.
3- The Ridenour Universal ATG Reed Surfacer does basically the same as sand paper, it actually uses sand paper on a well designed plastic block, and works well if you’re not handy with a reed knife for balancing or making a reed softer.
4- Wet and dry sand paper, #420 and or #600 for flattening the bottom of the reed to seal the pores to prevent warping or make the entire reed softer. Should be used with a plate of glass to assure an absolute flat surface. It’s imperative that the surface has no ruts or bumps in it. And or a bastard file.
5- The Reed Wizard. Balances the reed lower on the vamp where you can’t determine by feel or playing. (I was hesitant about this until I saw Ricardo Morales use it when we were about to perform together at a master class and his reed was stuffy. He used it and it just came to life.)
6- A PerfectaReed for measuring the thickness of a reed at different places on the reed. A good aid for making reeds or balancing them but does not compensate for the density of the cane.
7- Machines for reed making or adjusting reeds. There are several on the market from the old Reed du al that uses sand paper to the newer and more accurate Uhl RPM 68 that uses a blade to cut but is much more pricy. There are others on the market too but I’m most familiar with those two.
8- If you want to learn to adjust your reeds I suggest you start with the first three on this list. Number 4 can replace #3, you don’t need both.
I own and use all of the above at sometime or other and I know I’ve paid for them many times over in reed savings in the years I’ve been adjusting or making reeds. But mostly I make my reeds play better and that’s the most important thing. I’m not sure I’ll ever pay for my new Uhl but I’m having fun fixing and making reeds for myself and my students. Maybe if I was still in my 20s I would have enough years to have it pay for itself, but heck, it’s a tax deduction for me. ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 Listen to a little Mozart
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2008-10-01 01:44)
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Author: claritoot26
Date: 2008-09-29 15:07
Quick clarification here: number 1 and 2 don't really make the reed "harder" or "softer", they change the physical dimensions of the reed, so "thicker" and "thinner" are more appropriately used. Hardness refers to the density of the cane, and that remains unchanged. All of these tools are useful for sure, but it still takes a lot of experimentation and a scientific, organized thought process to really make the reeds work to their full potential. And, of course, practicing the instrument itself, but that goes without saying!
Lori
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Author: kdk
Date: 2008-09-29 16:44
Pretty complete list. You left out reed rush.
Karl
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-09-29 17:33
Lori wrote:
<<Hardness refers to the density of the cane, and that remains unchanged.>>
Semantics is my specialty...
Actually, if you want to get scientific about it, nobody really cares about true "hardness" when it comes to reeds, because true hardness is the resistance to *permanent* deformation. In a perfect world, you never permanently bend reeds when you play them, so true hardness doesn't matter.
When these kinds of things matter, scientists and engineers have better and less confusing terms they use.
The property of the material you are calling "hardness" is actually called "modulus of elasticity."
When you factor in the size and shape of the material, the property of resistance to deformation is called "stiffness."
I have always used "hard" and "soft" to refer to a player's subjective experience of playing the reed, which is how Ed is using these terms. In this sense, they are musical terms of art, not scientific/engineering terminology.
Same thing goes for a box of reeds that says "medium hard." It's the manufacturer's estimate of how "soft" or "hard" the reed is to play. You and I know that that estimate is based on a measurement of the stiffness of the reed (which gives you an estimate of the elastic modulus, since the dimensions of the reed should always be the same--or pretty close), but let's face it: you buy 3.5's because the 3's you bought were too soft and the 4's you bought were too hard.
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Author: marshall
Date: 2008-09-29 18:22
>> "Semantics is my specialty..."
Semantics ARE my speciality
;)
Learn your way around a double hollow ground knife...it's probably the best and most versatile tool that I've ever learned to use.
(my little addition)
Post Edited (2008-09-29 18:23)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-09-29 19:08
marshall wrote:
> >> "Semantics is my specialty..."
>
> Semantics ARE my speciality
>
Actually, what I wrote was not a mistake. "Semantics" is one of those ostensibly plural words like "physics" and "mathematics" that usually takes a singular verb. It's a field of study or thought.
In fact, in computer science journals, you often see papers with titles like "A Denotational Semantics for the Scheme Programming Language." That's correct, too, because in that context "a semantics" is a formal meaning for something.
I'm a patent lawyer, so a significant part of my job is quibbling about the precise meanings of technical terms. In that respect, semantics IS my specialty.
As long as we're quibbling about language, I couldn't let that go by without saying something....
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-09-29 20:57
I was skeptical too about the Reed Wizard when Ben Armato demonstrated it to me at an ICA convention, on a dud Fibracell reed. As with Mr. Morales, "it came to life", and I was convinced. Especially at $9 each.
The resulting reeds, whether cane or synthetic, have needed adjustment for me to be comfortable with them. Even if they only end up as practice reeds, this is sure much better that the duds they started out as.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-30 00:33
Lori, you can call it whatever you want but in the clarinet world a reed can be too soft or too hard, as well as any number of other things of course. When a reed is "too soft" for me I clip it and it becomes "harder". The tip of the reed is now closer to the thicker part of the reed and the tip itself can be thicker so the reed now plays with more resistant so it is now "harder" to play. The reed is now "harder" for me. You see, reed adjusting is an art, not a science. ESP
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Author: Ed
Date: 2008-09-30 14:25
I use a flat bastard file to flatten the backs of reeds . I have found it to work better than sandpaper. It also is very easy to slip ii into the the accessory area of my case cover and pull out when I need.
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Author: William
Date: 2008-09-30 15:40
Don't forget the music stand test (which many refer to as the "wall test" :>)
My tools of choice are 1) reed knife & 2) Reed Wizard. But with the new Vandoran flowpacks, nothing seems to work..........
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-10-01 01:43
Yes Ed, the other Ed, I left out the bastard file, that's a good alternative to sand paper. I use that when I begin with reed blanks before finishing with fine sand paper. ESP
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Author: claritoot26
Date: 2008-10-01 16:17
Thanks mrn and Ed P for clearing up the semantics of hard and soft. I see, hard and soft can refer to how hard or how easy (soft) a reed is to play, rather than its stiffness or modulus of elasticity. It seems to me that reed adjusting has both an artistic and a scientific side to it. The artistic side involves critical listening (to yourself and your mentors) to figure out what you want to sound like, and what qualities you want out of a reed. The scientific side involves experimentation with reed adjusting techniques so you can get some reproducible results. How to make it harder if it's too soft, or vice versa, how to improve the articulation, what profile measurements work best for a certain brand of cane (if you make your own reeds), etc. Of course, as I have discovered, two reeds with identical profile measurements can play quite differently, this depends on qualities in the cane itself. The final small adjustments made to a reed that makes it play its best involves both science and art, at least it seems that way to me.
Lori
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-10-02 00:34
Lori, you are so correct when you say, "two reeds with identical profile measurements can play quite differently, this depends on qualities in the cane itself." But there is still a difference between a reed being hard and soft, easy to blow or difficult to blow, needs more air to produce a tone or is too easy to produce a tone. Take your pick, a reed can be too hard or too soft, science or art, it really doesn't matter if you know how to adjust it. You see, if a reed is to hard, to stiff, for me I take wood off at a variety of places based on my experience, you know, balancing the tips, taking off the back or the sides or the bottom or were ever I determine it needs to be taken off. If a reed is too soft I clip it, rebalance it if necessary so it becomes "harder" or more resistant. You can call that a science if you like, I can accept that but to me it's an art that I learned both from teachers and other players as well as trial and error. I never was very good at science.
ESP
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-10-02 02:33
Ed Palanker wrote:
<<But there is still a difference between a reed being hard and soft, easy to blow or difficult to blow, needs more air to produce a tone or is too easy to produce a tone....You see, if a reed is to hard, to stiff, for me I take wood off at a variety of places based on my experience, you know, balancing the tips, taking off the back or the sides or the bottom or were ever I determine it needs to be taken off.>>
That's the part that I tend to find the most confusing, figuring out what to do where depending on the problem. Sanding/scraping to make a reed softer or to balance the tip and clipping to make it harder seem simple enough. I think it's dealing with those other issues like responsiveness and backpressure (too much/too little) that I find so irksome. I definitely think there's more art to it than science.
As an example, I bought some White Masters once, just to try them out. They were really responsive, which I rather liked, and I thought the sound was pretty good (although maybe a bit bright). The main problem with them was that they made a weird chirping sound between notes when used with my mouthpiece. With other reeds (like blue box Vandoren and 56 Rue Lepic) I don't get a chirp, but the responsive reeds all seem to sound too thin/bright to me and the more mellow sounding ones seem very sluggish. I've tried varying strengths, but I'm never quite satisfied. (Tough customer, I guess)
Using Tom Ridenour's ATG technique works to balance the tips, but I often end up with reeds that sound too thin as a result. It seems like there's another factor at work here that the ATG procedure doesn't exactly address. Also, it seems that simply thinning the tip like with ATG may not necessarily be the right way to deal with a reed that is clearly too hard, but doesn't really need balancing, per se, because oftentimes I simply end up with an overly bright sounding too-hard reed. But in that case I still don't know what "the right way" is (if there even is such a thing).
At any rate, I never seem to be able to come up with the right combination of responsiveness, tone, and strength--the White Masters were pretty close to what I want my reeds to do, except for that lousy chirping noise they periodically make when articulated in the low register (which is sort of like a really quick and high pitched version of that initial airy sound or hiss you get when you try to tongue a reed that's too hard). The white masters are narrower, shorter, and have a much shorter vamp than typical French reeds, but because I don't make my own reeds, I don't know what effect each of those differences in reed design has, individually, on the way the reed behaves.
So basically what I'd like are reeds that respond quickly but that don't sound too thin and aren't too hard to control once I'm through getting them to the level of responsiveness I want. I'm wondering what else can I try doing to make my reeds respond better without sacrificing the sound?
I'm also wondering what the pros/cons of different tip thickness are with respect to reeds in their "right out of the box" state. I understand Vandoren 56s (what I'm currently using) are supposed to have thicker tips than blue box (in addition to the more obvious difference of having thicker heels), but I don't really know what difference that makes, all other things being equal. I think there's also supposed to be a difference between GCS Thick Blank and GCS Evolution in terms of tip thickness, but since I've never tried either, I haven't the foggiest idea what the difference is and why that matters. I'm not attached to Vandorens, but when it comes to other reed brands I honestly don't know what's what.
Post Edited (2008-10-02 04:21)
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Author: Ebclarinet1
Date: 2008-10-02 11:52
I play oboe as well and I've found the Jende knife the best I've used in terms of adjusting both single and double reeds. With it I can do finer adjustments at the reed tip than some of the other reed knives. Anyway if you get a chance, try one.
eefer guy
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2008-10-02 15:06
mrn- here's something to consider:
The thicker the reed blank, the more cane is being used that is further away from the bark. The cane closest to the bark is denser than the cane further away from the bark.
There seems to be a growing trend towards think blank reeds. I guess the reasons given are that the thick blanks are supposed to have more resonance? I'll leave space here for thick blank enthusiasts to give their own reasons...
Personally I seem to be having more success with thinner blank reeds these days (eg. Vandoren blue box or Gonzalez traditional cut) In less than perfect pit-playing conditions (eg. warm and dry) my thicker blank reeds tend to sound fuzzy and slower in response. They also seem to have a pretty short life span. The thinner blanks seem to have a quicker response for me, but still have enough density in the cane to not sound too "thin". I have the feeling that they last longer too.
Of course none of what I have written is meant to be in any way scientific. It's just based on my personal playing experience. I would recommend trying various reed brands and thicknesses. Hope you find the magic reeds that work for you!
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-10-02 15:19
Liquorice wrote:
> The
> thinner blanks seem to have a quicker response for me, but
> still have enough density in the cane to not sound too "thin".
> I have the feeling that they last longer too.
After (too many) years of trying to get thicker blank reeds to respond quicker (thinning the tip, narrowing the rails, etc...) I eventually switched to a thinner blank reed (Vandoren Blue Box or Gonzalez RC) and noticed a significant difference in the number of concert reeds, without sacrificing quality of sound.
I think the trend towards a "dark sound" has led too many clarinetists down the road of reeds which are too hard and less responsive...GBK
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-10-02 17:50
MRN, I agree with you that the Ridenour tool does not do everything you want or need to do to a reed to make it play the way you want. I'm sure many people are very satisfied with it to make their reeds softer or balance but there are many other options. The fussier you are the more you need to know about reed adjusting. First off, you need to have the mouthpiece that gives you the tone quality and response you're looking for. I get the impression you may need to do some searching. If you are really happy with your MP I suggest you try at least 4-5 boxes of other brands to find what works best for you overall. There are so many differences between brands and cuts. Everything from where the cane is grown, how it's cured, aged and how it's cut. Many brands might look alike but there are subtle differences in how they are cut from the curve of the back of the vamp to how it's tapered to the tip. You just have to try them to see, and hear.
One of the tools I really suggest is the Reed Wizard because it balances a reed where you can't determine needs balancing. Of course it's only one tool, it's not a fix all. I also like the Perfecta reed because you can determine what you like in the measurements of a reed, but of course it does not take into consideration of the density of the cane, perhaps even more important than the thickness.
In any case, if you would like send me an e-mail with you address I'll send you the article I wrote several years ago that I give to my students on where, how and what you can do to improve a reed. Then you can experiment with all the possibilities to find what works best for you. ESP
www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 Listen to a little Mozart
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Author: rdc
Date: 2008-10-03 01:05
mrn, I can identify with you on the reed responsiveness vs. reed resistance struggle. For me, the issue seems to be with the flexibility of the tip area. If the reed has enough strength to stand up to embouchure and blowing pressure, the tip is usually not flexible enough for good overall response and/or playing at softer dynamic levels. On the other hand, a reed with good tip flexibility doesn't have the strength it needs and tends to have a "thinner" color to the sound.
My personal solution has been to get reeds that are on the stronger side (but still blow with good color) and then make the tip more flexible. With the ATG system, I use the tip thinning technique, and thin the corners of the tip as well, but I try to make sure I am not coming down too far on the tip with either technique. I want to see the tip of the reed have a definite flex that comes up against a less flexible portion of the reed about 1.5-2 mm down from the very edge of the reed's tip (hope this makes sense). Sometimes this tip area has to be revisited several times before this flex becomes a permanent part of the reed's architecture. Once the tip flexes like this, if the reed is still too resistant, several strokes down each rail keeping well to the outside seem to help.
Qualifications to all this are 1. My mouthpiece is fairly closed and blows with a fair amount of resistance. Not sure how this would work on a more open mouthpiece or one that blows very freely. 2. The reeds I have been using are the thick blank type (GCS Thick blank and Rico Reserve). V-12 I suspect would see similar results but I haven't tried them recently. Vandoren blue box have just been too variable for me to see good results: these reeds have a thinner (but not necessarily more flexible) tip, but I don't know if this has anything to do with my lack of success.
One other thing about balancing with the ATG. I have found that if the imbalance is caused by a particularly dense area of vascular bundles, I see better results by scraping over that area with a knife or some other tool first and then using ATG to finish. Hope this helps.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2008-10-03 03:05
(Disclaimer - I sell reeds, and some of the reed modification tools mentioned)
Thanks to all - A lot of good information about reeds and many thoughts to ponder in my own approach to adjusting reeds but also a lot of individual processes to make the reed work on your particular mouthpiece. They both interact with each other in concert and the multitude of different mouthpiece designs force constraints on how the reed must be shaped or altered to perform well on a particular mouthpiece.
Given, that a balanced reed with perform better on most any mouthpiece, but the architecture - volume, resistance, tip opening, lay, degree and approach to the curvature, etc., etc. have significant effects on how any reed will vibrate - lest we also forget the individuals embouchure and breath force too. This is not to diminish all of the good information about the tools and approaches used to modify reeds but with the caveat that these must be talored to the constraints put on reed vibration by the mouthpiece and player.
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-10-10 14:33
There is quite extensive research on instrument reeds and the materials they are made from that is available using google search and most of it necessitates wading through a lot of math. In trying to understand the subject, however, one should consider that a clarinet reed is a cantilever beam that is vibrating at resonance which is interrupted by the player. In addition the "mounting" of the beam may be more or less rigid depending on the ligature used. Although the mechanical property of stiffness is what the makers use to grade reeds most of us use the terms hard and soft since there is no "good" antonym for "stiff" although I have occasionally heard a player use the term "limp reed". The use of the term hard instead of stiff does have some engineering basis,however, since there is some correlation between true hardness and Bending Modulus of Elasticity.
Material density is also important but it is not the same thing as hardness. Saying it's all semantics doesn't explain anything.
Bob Draznik
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